Finding Comfort

All I am doing is to ask people to face the facts - to understand the questions which Christianity claims to answer. And they are very terrifying facts. I wish it were possible to say something more agreeable. But I must say what I think true. Of course, I quite agree that the Christian religion is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable comfort. But it does not begin in comfort; it begins in the dismay I have been describing, and it is of no use at all trying to go on to that comfort without first going through that dismay. In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth - only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair. - C.S Lewis, Mere Christianity

soon

soon i'll have an ocean
and a field of yellow lights
a thousand other bodies
to sleep near me at night

soon i'll have a family
of strangers on the bus
a shifting house, the resting place
of oil stains and rust

soon i'll have a small room
a place in which to hide
but i'll let some of the others
that I meet there come inside

soon we'll go together
as we have so often done
and you'll show me how the small parts
come together into one

iPoo 1.2

I scratched the iPoo.. Guess i'll have to keep it! :)

ooo-knee

I got into Uni! Yay!

iPoo

I have a confession to make.. The other day I walked in the Dick Smith and bought and iPod nano. I am giving it 14 days to prove itself. If it doesn't bring the good stuff i'm taking it BACK! HEAR THAT IPOD! i'M TALKING TO YOU!

*cough* Anyway.. I have been against iPods since they first appeared everywhere in High School. The way Apple tries to make it impossible to use anything but iTunes bugs me. The whole consumerist-ness of the iPod craze, all the accessories and the way they advertise bugs me. How sexy and sheek they are bugs me.

But "Ha Ha!", I thought as I walked in to Dick Smiths, "I will buy one while they are on special and find the way NOT to use iTunes!". My Dad has an iPod (which never ceases to shock me) and he figured out a way to do it. Why cant i?

I did a bunch of research and there ARE programs that can deal with iPods --- of an older generation or different models! I found NOTHING that could do iPod Nano 5th Gen in Kubuntu Linux. Amarok (my music program) would pretend it was doing something, and it WOULD actually put the songs on the iPod.. But Apple has done tricky things with the way it does the database (or something) and the iPod refused to see the songs that were on there. As far as it was concerned there was NOTHIN!! I literally spend an entire day trying to figure it out.

Anyway, what I ended up doing (which is insane), was install VirtualBox and installing Vista on the virtual machine. Then installed iTunes on Vista. So I'm running iTunes inside of Vista installed on a virtual computer INSIDE Linux.

Far out Apple - Cant you make it a little easier? You're missing out on customers by making it so friggin hard for Linux users (aka. people who don't want to be done over by Windows or monopolist b@$%@rds like YOU) to use iPods.

Hahaha this post has been fun! I've never had a rant post before!

Anyway VirtualBox worked a treat.. My iPoo is now chockablock full of music :)

But you're not out of the woods YET iPoo.. You've got 10 days..

-Hannah

one more time

Just in case you all didn't see how cute this was the first time!











It makes me do an involuntary "Guhuhuhhh!" every time I see it.

recorrdding

Yesterday I drove in convoy to the Blue Mountains to do some recording with Chris Gillespie! He has a nice little set up in his house.

It went really well. We arrived very hot and sweaty.. I sat on a chair with my guitar and he adjusted all the microphones around me. We did some sound checks then he told me to just go for it. I was a bit nervous - just hoping my voice would behave itself and I wouldn't make any major stuff ups. The last thing I wanted was to have to do lots of retakes of the same song... The longer I played the sweatier I got (It was crazy!). BUT - We got 5 songs down! All done in one take! Which was great. I did make one or two stuff ups but they're get-away-withable.

The sound was reaaalllyy nice! We went over a couple of them and did harmonies. Chris added some beeaauuttiifull guitar parts over the top of one of them, and is even going to put some double bass to another! Cooool!

Anyway, I just have to wait a while now for Chris to send the master. Exciting :) Thanks for recording me Chris!! Thanks for organising it Kate!!! And generally being VERY kind and encouraging and helping me take risks with my music.

-Hannah

go to bed now

Last night I slept on a camping mat on the kitchen floor. I would like to do a month of sleeping on a mat in an empty room with a wooden floor and one big window and a tree outside who's silhouette I could see through half of the window at night.. That'd be interesting.

My house-sitting days are coming to an end. I will do a big clean of this place tomorrow!

I'm so sleepy. Night

Ode to a Bird

Oh little brown bird! You died too young..
I'm sorry you were caught by the furry black cat! I'm sorry he bit you and made you bleed. I'm sorry he broke your wing. I'm sorry he presented you to me as a gift, dropping you on the cold tiled floor before my feet this afternoon. I'm sorry I couldn't make you better. I'm sorry you were scared and in pain. And I'm sorry I had to chop off your head with a hammer a chisel to end your suffering... Please rest in peace in the backyard.